Supersonic travel Concorde rebirth possible

2003: The last ever Concorde passenger flight takes off from New York's JFK Airport en route to London.Not to be a buzzkill, but there's a reason the Concorde stopped flying twelve years ago: Supersonic travel is expensive and people didn't want to pay for it.The planes were making less money while facing daunting fiscal hurdles.Make no mistake, if there's a robust market for these planes in the future, companies will build them.Sometimes it's hard to distinguish economic viability from nostalgia.A group called "Club Concorde" has raised £120 million ($186 million) to bring back the Concorde.The organization -- which describes its members as "ex-captains, ex-charterers and people passionate about Concorde" -- hopes to get one of the decommissioned aircraft back in the skies by 2019, according to the Telegraph newspaper.

Why it shut downLet's take a minute to remember the dire situation that shut the Concorde down back in 2003.As the airline industry struggled to recover after the 9/11 attacks, a Paris Concorde crash on takeoff left 113 dead.Passenger traffic was falling. Ticket prices were high: round-trip between London and New York was as high as $10,000.Manufacturer Airbus said the planes would need an "enhanced maintenance program in the coming years."Operator British Airways said that investment couldn't "be justified" in the current economy.Supersonic travel Concorde rebirth possibleA marketing executive for Aerion Corporation named Jeff Miller told CNNMoney last year that a new generation of small supersonic planes could succeed where the 1960s-era Concorde failed.Improvements in aerodynamics, engines and composite materials make a supersonic passenger jet rebirth possible because they will save fuel, and ultimately, money.Aerion is developing a $110 million, 12-passenger business jet capable of hitting Mach 1.6 -- or close to 2,000 kilometers per hour.Expected delivery of this new supersonic plane: 2022.One small catch: they would travel a bit slower than the Concorde to cut costs.What? Slower than a plane that was designed in the 1960s? What's the point?Yep, the world sure is a sucker for the nostalgia surrounding the Concorde and supersonic flight.It'll be interesting to see how the reality will take shape.

Who would fund it?What would it take to design, build, test and get approval for a new supersonic airliner?Back in the 1960s, the gigantic task took the power and wealth of the French and British governments, who paid for it and pushed it to fruition.Estimated cost to develop and build the first four Concordes: about £1.134 billion ($1.6 billion), according to aerospaceweb.org.Would governments or private companies be willing to spend that kind of money for a new supersonic airliner today?Another big unknown: Could a supersonic airliner sustain itself economically?